Stephen Lawrence case Q and A

Who is Stephen Lawrence? Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old sixth form student who was stabbed to death in Eltham, south London, on the night of April 22, 1993. It soon became clear that the murder was motivated by racism.

Why is the case so controversial? The racist murder of Stephen Lawrence was not unique - the Institute of Race Relations has documented 24 racially-motivated murders in Britain since 1991. Controversy still surrounds many of these killings and the inadequacies of subsequent police operations, but it is the Stephen Lawrence case which has caught the public eye and the media's attention.

This is because the police failed to bring successful charges against five youths, Jamie and Neil Acourt, Gary Dobson, David Norris and Luke Knight, who were widely viewed as the prime suspects in the murder.

It has taken two police inquiries, a public inquiry, and now the Macpherson Report, to reveal the extent of the corruption and the conscious and unconscious racism that afflicted the police force investigating Stephen Lawrence's murder.

How did the five suspects escape a conviction? All five suspects were arrested, questioned and released on police bail in the two months after the murder. Two of the five were finally charged with murder and appeared in court in June 1993. But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) discontinued its case in July 1993, arguing that there was "insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of a conviction." Despite the emergence of new evidence, the CPS refused to re-open murder charges.

What was the problem with the police and the evidence against the five suspects? Stephen Lawrence's family and supporters were dissatisfied by the police investigation and complained. After two internal police inquiries failed to satisfy the family, a public inquiry called by Home Secretary Jack Straw confirmed many of their complaints against the police.

The public inquiry revealed too many examples of dubious police practice to list comprehensively, but the following examples illustrate the air of incompetence and corruption which pervaded the investigation.

Police appeared to take a cavalier attitude to evidence. Stephen Lawrence's friend Duwayne Brooks, who was with him when he was attacked though he was not seriously injured himself, recalled a gang shouting: "What what nigger" before attacking them. But his identification evidence was dismissed as unreliable. Another eyewitness to the murder was not asked for information for an artist's impression until five years after the murder. Police also failed to take a statement from a teenager who knew the suspects who wrote in her diary on the week of the murder: "Acourts stabbed black boy up Well Hall Road, Jamie, Neil, Gary, David and Lukie."

Police officers admitted that they had enough evidence to arrest Norris and one of the Acourt brothers, but that a "strategic decision" was taken to wait. Instead, they watched the Acourts' house on the days after the murder. On consecutive days the surveillance team saw the suspects walking out of the house carrying bin bags and driving away, but they were not pursued because the team did not have a mobile phone.

There have also been widespread allegations of corruption in the investigating police force. Gary Dobson's father was a former police officer. David Norris's father is a well-known south London criminal, currently in prison, known to have friends in the force.

Why did the Lawrences' private prosecution fail? The Lawrences launched a private prosecution in April 1995 which led to three men, Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt, being charged with murder and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. David Norris and Jamie Acourt were discharged on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

These three suspects were formally acquitted of murder in April 1996 after the judge ruled that vital eyewitness evidence - particularly that of Stephen Lawrence's friend Duwayne Brooks - was unreliable and inadmissible.

Why is this unjust? Stephen Lawrence's mother, Doreen Lawrence, argues: "We will never know if we had enough evidence or not, because the jury were never given the opportunity to make that judgment the judge directed them to return a verdict of not guilty." The suspects refused to speak at the private prosecution.

Why can't the five suspects be tried again? Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt cannot be tried again for the murder of Stephen Lawrence because of the rule of double jeopardy, or autrefois acquit - 'I've already been acquitted'. British law decrees that if a person has been cleared of a crime, even if incontrovertible proof of their guilt later emerges (DNA evidence for instance), they cannot be retried for the same crime. Nor can they be tried for a new offence with old evidence.

What was the purpose of the 1997-98 public inquiry? The inquiry was an attempt to examine what went wrong in the police investigation and address some of the grievances of the Lawrence family and the black community. It also enabled the Lawrence family to observe the five suspects being questioned in detail in an officially sanctioned environment on their part in the death of Stephen Lawrence.

It lasted 69 days, in several instalments stretching from October 1997 to November 1998, after which its chairman, former High Court judge Sir William Macpherson, wrote the Stephen Lawrence Report, published in full on Wednesday 24 February.

What now?

Will the five suspects be tried again? There has been recent speculation that the five suspects could be tried under a different charge, conspiracy to murder. But legal experts believe such a move is unlikely because of a 1964 Law Lords ruling which states that no one can be tried a second time for a crime for which the jury could have convicted him the first time.

There have also been suggestions that the five could be charged with perjury relating to the evidence they gave at the public inquiry. There, the suspects responded to questions from the Lawrences' legal team with minimal answers, most commonly "I have no idea", and "I don't remember". Despite their guarded answers, legal experts believe that there were enough anomalies in their evidence to mount a perjury charge.

What legal arguments can the suspects muster in their favour? The five suspects have made several formal complaints, including a letter of complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about media coverage of their case. The suspects' mothers recently threatened to sue the Daily Mail for its 1997 'Murderers' headline.

The five might try to claim that any new trial could not possibly be fair, given the widespread assumption of their guilt and the hostile media coverage directed against them. But if this rule were rigorously applied it would incapacitate all high-profile cases. Setting such a precedent would render the legal system incapable of dealing with many similar serious crimes.

Will the scandal of the Lawrence case bring about any change in the law? The Macpherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence affair makes 70 recommendations, encompassing a vast range of issues touched upon by the case, from law to education.

Its most significant legal recommendation is a call for reform of the rule of double jeopardy, allowing for exceptions to cover the extraordinary circumstances of the Lawrence case.

The Macpherson report also recommends extending the 1976 Race Relations Act to cover the police, armed forces and immigration service. This would allow individuals and the Commission for Racial Equality to bring legal action against the police. The report also suggests making the use racist language in society a criminal offence.

What else could the Lawrence case change? The Macpherson report argues that police acknowledgement of the "institutional racism" within the force (a problem that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon refused to accept at the public inquiry) is a prerequisite for better policing in partnership with ethnic communities.

Regarding trial and inquest procedure, it recommends that victims be given advance disclosure of evidence.

In wider society, it recommends changes to the schools' National Curriculum to emphasise the value of cultural diversity.

Few of the recommendations in the Scarman Report, the last key investigation of race relations in Britain which followed the race riots of 1981, led to lasting change. Of course, the impact of the Macpherson report recommendations depends on the reaction of the police and the response of the Government. Given the state of public and media opinion, both institutions may be forced into being more proactive in bringing about change than they were in 1981.